Hey everyone! So this is my first fic and any review will be awesome! Especially CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. This will be Daryl/OC fic but I have to set things up before I can get there.

I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I only own my own characters.

"My name is Mackenzie Renyolds. And I maybe one of the last survivors in this godforsaken land. If there is anyone else out there, anyone who may be listening at all, there I have a safe haven. I have food, water, clothes, shelter, and safety. If there is anyone out there that could use some hope, I will be at the Baptist Church on the outskirts of Sheboygan, WI every day. This is not a recording. It is November whatever 2011, not that time really means anything in the zombie apocalypse. It has been almost fourth months since the world has gone to shit. Again this is Mackenzie Renyolds and I am offering hope. Good bye."

Hershel's Farm

No one knew what to say after Rick had shot Sophia and ended her undead life. Carol lay on the ground sobbing in Daryl's arms. She kept reaching out to the shell of her daughter. Daryl just sat looking on at the remains of the girl he almost died while trying to track. She had literally been in their backyard the entire time. Not that it would have helped.

Rick let his arm drop lifelessly after taking the shot. He stared down guiltily at what was left of a sweet little girl. Suddenly he turned unable to continue to stare at the lifeless body of Sophia. As he turned he saw his wife, Lori, curled around Carl. Tears were streaming out of his blue eyes, which had already seen so much horror. Rick felt the guilt slam into him.

"This is all my fault," he whispered to himself. The weight of his decisions slammed onto his shoulders, and his knees buckled. He hit the ground and crawled over to his family to shed tears with them.

Glenn, Andrea, T-Dog and Dale just stood on looking in horror, unable to say anything. Each of them struggling to say something but incapable of finding any words. Hershel continued to sit where he had collapsed while the massacre had happened before his eyes. He couldn't believe it. These people he had known all his life, his wife and stepson, were gunned down in front of him. They had staggered out of the barn, come after the living with one intention, to feed. There was no recognition in their eyes that their prey was the people who love them. Hershel realized that those things were no longer people. The world was longer what he thought it was.

Shane was the one that broke the silence that was otherwise punctuated with the cries and sniffles of the grieving.

"We need to deal with remains. It's not safe to just leave them here. It's bound to attract more walkers." He set his rifle down, pulled out a pair of work gloves, and started to move walker bodies into a large pile. T-Dog and Glenn went and got their own gloves and started to help Shane. Lori, Carl, Hershel, and Maggie started to make their way back to the farm house. Rick and Daryl had started their part in the cleanup. While they piled corpses upon corpses Andrea took Carol from Daryl's arms and tried to lead her back to camp.

"No! Don't put her with them," cried Carol, as T-Dog picked up Sophia's body and began to place it on the growing mound of walker corpses. He stopped and looked to Shane in askance.

"She was a walker. She wasn't a human anymore; she needs to be disposed of as one," claimed Shane.

"No! She is my little girl. My beautiful little girl. She is not a walker!" spat Carol getting right in Shane's face. Shane looked at her awkwardly.

"Let her bury the girl," said Rick, trying to diffuse the situation.

Shane quickly rounded on Rick, who was hoisting the remains of a female walker clad in a dingy floral nightgown onto the top of the pile. Disbelief shot across Shane's face.

"What! You know we need to burn these bodies. The stench will attract others. That little girl was no longer a girl. I told you, Rick, you need can't make the tough choices. I'm the one who always needs to be the bad guy. I'm the one who had to get Lori and Carl out of the city. I'm the one who made sure we all survived, where we camped, who we allowed in the group.

And then what? You came back from the dead and I'm pushed to the side with nothing. What hard decisions have you made? Huh? When to move on? Yeah, that wasn't hard after the massacre that happened at the quarry. When Amy died and Andrea was forced to shoot her own sister. You didn't make that choice; you just stood by and again let someone else make it. There have been so many hard choices I've made that you can't even imagine."

At this point everyone outside was staring at him with shock. The pile of bodies left alone while other corpses still surrounded them. Everyone knew that this had been coming for a while between Rick and Shane. Shane felt like his leadership power had been usurped by Rick, and Rick didn't see it. Shane's long rant came to an end on a sigh. "You just aren't strong enough to make the hard decisions."

Rick just stared at the man he thought was his best friend. "You don't think I can make the hard decisions? I made the decision to handcuff Merle to the rooftop in Atlanta. I then decided, after finding my family, to go back to that hellhole to find him. I decided to run after Sophia when the walkers were going after her. I decided to leave her by the Creek alone. And then I took the consequences of that decision and I was the one who looked her in the eyes and shot her in the head. And you're saying that those were easy decisions? Forget it Shane."

With that Rick gave one last glance at the body of Sophia lying on the ground. He saw the blonde curly hair, her little capris and blue t-shirt, her sneakers. In her mind he saw her laughing with his son while holding her doll. He saw her playing cards with Glenn in the RV and giving Glenn a shy smile when she won a hand. He refused to see what she had become, the large chunk of her neck torn out by the walker to made her such.

Rick looked at Carol, who was back on her knees smoothing out her dead daughter's hair. Tears were dribbling down her cheeks as she cooed to her baby. "Let's go bury your daughter," he said to Carol. He leaned down and carefully scooped up the girl, ignoring the stench the reminded him of his guilt.

Carol slowly got to her feet and whispered, "Thank you so much, Rick." Around them the rest of the men had gotten back to work, stacking the bodies.

Review please!